“Joseph Schwab said in 1962 that science is most commonly taught as a â€rhetoric of conclusions." He developed sophisticated arguments for teaching science as “enquiry.”
An independent mind is one that is grounded in ‘enquiry’. Enquiry demands the ability to develop significant questions and the ability to utilize good judgment while separating the wheat from the chaff.
John Dewey, a great philosopher, psychologist, and pedagogy discussed the discrepancy between the skills valued in adults and the skills taught to children in schools. Dewey lamented the fact that independent thinking skills were demanded of adults but our children were being taught the converse in our schools.
My grade school, high school and college education convinces me that Dewey is accurate. I am a retired engineer and my contact with the sciences of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and engineering were completely an experience that was algorithmic (a step-by-step procedure for solving problems) in nature. Later I took courses in the humanities and these were more of a historic enquiry into who thought what and why they thought it at the time that they did so.
In my opinion the natural sciences do not prepare an individual to become an independent mind whereas the humanities do a better job of that. Does your schooling lead you to agree with me and Dewey?
I suspect that most of us are willing to agree that, broadly speaking, we have ‘fact knowledge’ and ‘relationship knowledge’. I would like to take this a step further by saying that I wish to claim that fact knowledge is mono-logical and relationship knowledge is multi-logical.
Mono-logical matters have one set of principles guiding their solution; this set of principles is often (if not always) the ‘scientific method’. Often these mono-logical matters have a paradigm–The natural sciences—normal sciences—as Thomas Kuhn labels it in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions†move forward in a “successive transition from one paradigm to anotherâ€. A paradigm defines the theory, rules and standards of practice. “In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possible pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant.â€
Multi-logical problems are different in kind from mono-logical matters.
Socratic dialogue is one technique for attempting to grapple with multi-logical problems; problems that are either not pattern like or that the pattern is too complex to ascertain. Most problems that we face in our daily life are such multi-logical in nature. Simple problems that occur daily in family life are examples. Each member of the family has a different point of view with differing needs and desires. Most of the problems we constantly face are not readily solved by mathematics because they are not pattern specific and are multi-logical.
Dialogue is a technique for mutual consideration of such problems wherein solutions grow in a dialectical manner. Through dialogue each individual brings his/her point of view to the fore by proposing solutions constructed around their specific view. All participants in the dialogue come at the solution from the logic of their views. The solution builds dialectically i.e. a thesis is developed and from this thesis and a contrasting antithesis is constructed a synthesis that takes into consideration both proposals. From this a new synthesis a new thesis is developed.
When we are dealing with mono-logical problems well circumscribed by algorithms the personal biases of the subject are of small concern. In multi-logical problems, without the advantage of paradigms and algorithms, the biases of the problem solvers become a serious source of error. One important task of dialogue is to illuminate these prejudices which may be quite subtle and often out of consciousness of the participant holding them.
Our society is very good while dealing with mono-logical problems. Our society is terrible while dealing with multi-logical problems.
Do you not think that we desperately need to understand CT, which attempts to help us understand how to think about multi-logical problems? Do you not think that it is worth while for every adult to get up off their ‘intellectual couch’ and teach themselves CT?
I have to agree strongly with that method of teaching science. Scientists don’t just follow lab manuals and cook up grand concepts like Relativity or Evolution, they ask questions about the way the world works and then they make predictions, based on answers to questions they’ve already asked. They then go out and test their predictions against reality to see if they’re right or not. That’s how science works.
The questions are critical. They guide the Enquiry, and the development of paradigms. Though the method of verifying and testing paradigms is algorithmic and “mono-logical”, the questions that generate the scientific enquiries aren’t. They come from creative minds, trying to make sense of the way the world works by asking the right questions. That’s enquiry.
So then it makes the most sense to teach science as enquiry, because that’s the way it really works. It’s also the way science is most beautiful, and the way that science pedagogy becomes most benifical at creating good thinkers.
Yes to both questions. Though I am not an adult yet, I am greatly affected by the choices adults make. And too often adults – at all levels, from politicians to school administrators and everything in between-- make arbitrary or ill-informed choices in my opinion. I think teaching everyone CT (I’m assuming CT=Critical Thinking) skills would do our society a big favor.
Theone…says–“Yes to both questions. Though I am not an adult yet, I am greatly affected by the choices adults make. And too often adults – at all levels, from politicians to school administrators and everything in between-- make arbitrary or ill-informed choices in my opinion. I think teaching everyone CT (I’m assuming CT=Critical Thinking) skills would do our society a big favor.”
Absolutly correct CT is equal to Critical Thinking and you are correct in your judgment. Hang in there and do not allow the fools to distract you.
While I want to agree that we gloss both questions and answers, I’m troubled by the distinction made in that, one never escapes the “rhetoric of conclusions”. CT always exists within enculturated assumptions -ie- We have ‘made sense of’ the world long before we are capable of critical thinking. This isn’t to say that we couldn’t or shouldn’t do a better job of teaching and applying our thinking ability, but that ‘separating the wheat from the chaff’ implies prior knowing, which is based on assumptions about the nature of the world we grow up with from infancy.
I meant to do that. OK. Let’s try this: An independent mind is a bit of a misnomer. It assumes that we have made no assumptions, have no pre-conceived ideas. I’m contending that this is not possible. We make inquiries from birth, and many of our later concepts are filtered through earlier enquiry>decision>knowing. Many of our pre-conceived notions have been in place so long that we are unaware of them acting on our current inquiries. To the extent that we are aware of these pre-conceived ideas, then genuine and open inquiry is possible. We can perhaps get close to an ‘independent mind’ but it would be a rare person in deed who sees or allows for them in every day experiencing. Does that make sense? If not I have a whole bag of metaphors…
Tentative- I think I get it. You’re saying it’s impossible to be COMPLETELY open-minded, due to the fact that everyone’s thinking is colored by their previous experiences, some of which have lasting impacts but only fade away to vague memories (or are repressed).
hmm…
Ok, but wouldn’t complete critical thinking entail becoming aware of those assumptions? Wouldn’t a perfect critical thinker (key word= perfect) be skeptical and meticulous enough to unearth their childhood assumptions and see if they 1) are logically coherent 2) accurately describe the real world? Wouldn’t a perfect critical thinker have to be like a better Descartes (Descartes 2.0 maybe?) and start off doubting EVERYTHING and eventually reach some conclusions?
I meant to do that. 